Weekends

The big shindig… also known as… Smoke on the Border in Gravette, Arkansas. So, we made it. The boys signed up, we hauled everything down, and bam, we were entered. I say we loosely. I helped when they said they needed it or by washing their dishes, but this was all them!

Saturday was the People’s Choice event. Basically, people were allowed to come and walk through the 2 streets blocked off for the event. If people had samples, obviously they could sample it. Samples were cut off around like 2 maybe. Then, the People’s Choice meat was dropped off to the church around the corner at 5 pm. People could buy wrist bands for $10 and they basically got all you can eat meat plus possible sides. Sunday was the main event. So they had the option of entering in 4 categories… pulled pork, brisket, ribs, and/or chicken. The awards were held at the Methodist Church as were all things turned in. And bam, it was all over but the cleanup. (more…)

So… here’s a little back information for you about me and Vanities because I’m sure you wondered… My whole life I’ve never had a vanity with drawers. There, I said it.

Growing up at my parent’s house and now back there again, my bathroom sink doesn’t have drawers. I do remember when my parents were building the house I asked for vanity sink drawers, but it didn’t happen.

Moving on to the dorms at school… The sink was sort of free-standing in a way. It just hooked to the wall. It wasn’t completely down. Plus the one in our room I had to share with a roommate. It was the kitchen sink as well as the bathroom sink. It also had… you guessed… NO drawers.

We had community bathrooms in the dorm I lived in. They didn’t have drawers either. I was like vanity drawer deprived.

It just so happened there was an auction for home remodeling the Saturday after we bought our house. How convenient. It also happened to be one of the coldest days of the year thus far, other than when we had snow back in November.

The girls went with us. Poor them! We finally sent them out to the truck with the keys and my phone (Tbug had hers) for entertainment. It wasn’t going fast and boy was it cold. I think Cold is an understatement at this point. Holy cow!

They had cabinets, flooring, wood, paneling, sinks, fans, you name it… We walked away with the tile for the backsplash of my kitchen, which apparently at this point I can’t find a picture of. I didn’t have my phone (read above paragraph) and hubby never sent me the pictures I took :).

We called it quits long before the auction was over. It started at either 9 or 10. We left at 1. It was cold and boring, and the things we wanted still hadn’t sold. I talked to a couple who went to these often and they said that one of the previous auctions lasted until after 7pm the last time.

Here we are, the last day of 2018. I’ve tried typing 2019 a few times and my fingers always slip up and I wind up typing 2018. Oy! I’ll wish you luck with that new task just as you should wish me luck!!

So being the last day of the year, I’ll leave you with a weird/funny story. I really should recap Christmas but I haven’t edited all the photos yet. I guess that’s what happens when you get busy remodeling a house…

Once upon a time, I think I told you the socks story but… My grandma used to always give me socks for Christmas. Then she passed away in 2007. Hubby and I didn’t start dating until 2009, but I swear I didn’t make this comment until I was dating him, but I questioned who would get me socks for Christmas now. So silly and stupid I know… But I did say that. (more…)

Everyone is all talking about Christmas and Holiday Home Tours and I’m over here like wait, WHAT?!?! I want to do that. Oh, wait… I can’t. Why? Well, look above. Do you know what you’re looking at? If not, I’ll tell you… It’s my open concept bathroom/Kitchen. Why put a wall between when you can make them one and take a shower while stirring something on the stove, right?

I’m kidding… sort of… I’ll explain. Right here on the left side of the wall (look for the shovel leaning up against the wall on the right side…) you really are looking into the kitchen and bathroom. And there really is no wall separating the two. They always say be prepared if you plan on doing something like this because you don’t know what you’re going to find. Well, what we found was there was a leak for what appeared to be YEARS in the bathroom where the bathtub/shower combo was and the floor was rotted. In fact, the wall behind where the window is was rotted all the way through and you can actually see the back side of the siding through the house. That’s not normal. Nope, not normal at all. (more…)

And just like that, Thanksgiving is over. I saw a meme the other day that I actually saw a year ago… something about spending 10 hours cooking for it to be gone in 30 minutes and then spending 5 hours cleaning up or something. haha. But that’s kind of the fun in Thanksgiving!

It’s also funny how short weeks feel the longest sometimes. Thanksgiving is always the 3rd Thursday of November. And that week, every year feels so long! Probably because of the anticipation of what is to come that week. That’s what I’m going with anyway!

This year, we had plans to leave Tuesday after Abug got out of school to head to my aunt and uncle’s house in Oklahoma. I love when we get to go see them. I have a pretty small family as is, so when we don’t get to see each other on holidays it makes it feel so weird. Weird is the only word I can see to describe it. My family did get bigger when I married my husband, but still… unfortunately they don’t care for me very much so I’ve heard. I get blamed for things that are out of my control and that sucks. But my husband, he’s my rock. He loves me and that’s what matters!

Anyway, Tbug couldn’t come down with us because she had a dentist appointment on Wednesday. My parents weren’t able to come down until Wednesday night so they brought her with them. It was a big happy family!! (more…)

I didn’t leave you hanging! I told you yesterday with the Wonder Woman Cookies that I had a Wonder Woman Cupcake Cake post coming up and here it is! Yey, go me, go me, it’s my birthday, we’re going to party like it’s my birthday.

Please tell me you kind of know the song I was just referencing. I mean I totally botched it up and all but please tell me I’m not THAT old. I was singing that around a kid here recently. By kid, she’s an early teen. I think maybe 8th or 9th grade this year. She looked at me straight-faced and said, it’s not my birthday. Yes, yes I know… it’s a song. Sigh. I tried then to explain the song and yeah, it was lost on deaf ears I think. Sad day! I’m the “old” person in the room. In my life, I usually am the youngest of the group of people I run around with. I’m kind of used to it…

But… let’s not focus on that… let’s focus on the fact that I made a Wonder Woman Birthday Cupcake Cake for my friend Jody’s daughter. Oh who by the way, Jody is younger than me. WHAT? Yup, I show my age there too, but I’m only a couple years older… I think ;). Shhhhh, don’t tell, please! (more…)

Seems like here lately all I’ve been doing is cakes… and I won’t lie… I kind of like doing those these days. There was a while that I hated decorating cakes but sometime last year I found that love and this year I’ve honed in on that love. In fact, right now as I type this I have cakes in the oven baking. Ooooo are you excited to find out what is in the oven? Don’t worry, I’ll share… eventually.

Heck, these cookies are from a couple weekends ago. LIfe has been crazy lately. A lot of ups and downs and more downs but there are ups too. It’s that roller coaster ride thing. It would be easy some days to throw your hands up in the air and say, I’m done… But… I’m not done. Not yet. I’m just holding on and screaming my head off. Think roller coaster rides of course. I always compare life to a roller coaster ride. I love roller coasters but the older I get the more they scare the crap out of me for some reason.

More on that thought real quick… I guess when I was just barely tall enough to ride the roller coasters at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, I used to cry because they wouldn’t let me ride while other people used to cry that they didn’t want to ride them. Now I get to call this thing called the roller coaster of life. haha.

Guys, I truly believe this! My dad’s birthday is today. In all the world I couldn’t have asked for a better daddy! I know a lot of people say that, but gosh it’s true. I’m sitting here writing this while watching last night’s Dancing with the Stars which was a turning point in all their lives. I don’t know if the tears streaming down my face are because of my daddy or those stories… Truthfully it could be both. My daddy is the absolute best daddy a girl could have. I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. And I just want to wish my daddy the absolute best day he could possibly have.

So as most of you know… or maybe you don’t so I’ll tell you now… I’ve spent this year falling back in love with making cakes. Beautiful cakes. Cakes for every occasion I can. So of course, my dad’s birthday would be no different. I went through a lot of different recipes trying to find the absolute BEST recipe for my dad. That’s when I stumbled across a recipe for a Birthday Cinnamon Roll Cake. WHAT? I should inform you now that my dad loves cinnamon rolls so it’s perfect, right? (more…)

Do you remember that my husband was military? Army in fact. A long time ago. Long before I was in the picture, but kind of not really. I was in the picture in high school, then I was out, and now I’m back again. Okay, anyway, moving on.

When you’re in the army, you form a brotherhood. You get brothers and sisters who have your back and they have yours. Why? Because you guys are all joining together to do one thing, defend our country and our freedoms. My husband has a couple guys who have served that purpose for him. And two of them happen to be twins. Isn’t that fun? I can also mention that in the last 2 weeks I have seen both of them… and they both live in different places.

One has recently moved about an hour from us while the other still lives at the Army base in Oak Grove, Kentucky/Ft. Campbell. If you ask my husband, that area is called Tuckasee because you are on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. In fact, the army base is in both states, it just registers as Kentucky because that’s the side the post office is on.

Anyway, I might be getting a little off topic. It happens. A couple weeks ago we headed to Metropolis, Illinois to go SCUBA diving. One of my husband’s brothers is sick. He could use all the prayers he can get, trust me! But being in Metropolis, we were only 2 hours from seeing him if that… so we schemed with his wife behind his back to show up on his doorstep to see him.

In fact, I thought it would be fun to send him random text messages of his house to show we were there. The silly guy was playing WOW so he wasn’t paying attention to his phone very much and Krissy had to make him look.

Clarksville, Tennessee

There really isn’t anywhere to stay in Oak Grove, so we went across the line into Tennessee for a hotel. Tim’s exit is 89. There are 94 in Kentucky and then you cross over the line. We went to exit 4. (more…)